I’m good at sourcing humor in the morbid. But grief taxed that skill. I broke up with my therapist for gazing at me with too much pity. When friends complained about their parents, I thought: How annoying, yes, they call you frequently, you must spend holidays with them. Friends never meant to be cruel. They momentarily forgot my circumstances, that I’d kill for those irritations. I saw flashes of my future rites of passage, mangled. No one to walk me down any aisle. No parents to swoop in and calm their fussing new grandchild. No caring for aging parents. No death bed moment where a father and daughter resolve longstanding wounds. My friends were having milestones in ways I could never share. Years later, they still are.” Thank you, Kelli. Reading your words brought me to a level of recognition of the profound impact losing my parents so young had on me. I have tears pouring down my face because sobriety is letting me finally feel the grief. In losing my mother so early in life, the memories of who she was and what she looked like, fade with every passing day. Here is some of what I remember: -She took serious care of me when I had rheumatic fever for months. I missed half of Kindergarten. She rented a hospital bed, placed it in front of the living room window and arranged for my friends to say hello and show me “get well” pictures through the glass. She even arranged a parade of friends to come by on Halloween. · She made all my clothes. I remember begging her to have a store-bought dress. · She knitted clothes for my Barbie dolls. I dreamed of having store-bought outfits like my cousin (no, wait, I really didn’t like dolls at all; I tried to like them for her.)
Sometimes when she was mad at Dad, she would drive Bob and I to Half Moon Bay where we just sat on the beach for hours. I loved that. This was one of my fondest memories of her. · She was a terrible cook and we had the same thing each week: Pot roast, “Shit-on-the-shingle (creamed canned chipped beef on toast), waffles, corned beef hash, canned salmon croquettes, liver and onions and beef tongue. Mom worked in a fish store for a short period of time and that’s when she added frog legs and crab cioppino to the menu. · She sewed all of the Hayward Twirlettes baton troupe’s velveteen and sequined outfits two years running. (Does making your kid twirl a baton in parades where you had to dance and twirl while side-stepping horse droppings for miles qualify as child abuse?)
She was a good baker. My favorite were her frosted cutout sugar cookies. Until one day when she discovered my brother and I had snuck into her stash, made us sit at the kitchen table and eat cookies until we cried and begged for mercy. · Growing up, my mother was often depressed and angry. I had no idea what mom I would find when I came home from school – my sullen mom or my cheerful one. My own life swung with her moods. But with a project to focus on, she was happy, even fun. Our house would become peaceful for weeks at a time, but I was always waiting for the shoe to drop. Because it always did. I just wish I would have known at the time that alcohol played such a big role. I would have blamed myself less. · She was in the hospital six months before she died. I went to see her almost every night. She was in so much pain that she was often hallucinating. She died in the middle of the night when I wasn’t there. It would not be until my 60’s when I quit drinking and started telling my psychologist the truth, that I was able to process all of that loss. I had convinced myself that I wouldn’t have all the things I have today – my three adult children and seven grandchildren had all that not happened to me. Dr. H helped me to grieve and understand the tremendous impact of becoming an orphan in my 20’s. Therapy helped me to forgive and connect with my mother in a way that is very healing. My younger brother and I are beginning to have more conversations about of our parents. Happy Mother’s Day Margaret June Newman. I am sober for both of us. Who knew that my sobriety would bring me back to you?
· She smoked. Everything in our house was covered in nicotine.
· She was extremely creative. She won awards for decorating Christmas trees often making all of the ornaments and garland by hand. My dad was responsible for the flocking. There was the pink angel hair tree, the tree with the felt and sequin-studded mice, Santa’s, Mrs. Santa’s, camels and more (I think felt ornaments were all the rage that year), the tree that was hung up- side-down from the ceiling with a mirror on the floor (I wouldn’t let any of my friends come over that year), the tree that was split in half and hung on the wall (nope, no friends over that year either), the gold tree with hand- made matching rings. For years, my brothers and I begged for a “normal” tree. We got one, but never asked again after she made us put on one painstaking strand of tinsel at a time.
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